Development of a laser beam writing system for continuous patterning of substrates with different reflectance

In this report, we describe a laser beam writing system developed by us. The system is suitable for writing patterns on the order of several micrometers in a maskless manner. To make optical waveguides (LiNbO3) efficiently, we adopted a specially designed holder and improved the algorithm of the autofocus control. Such improvements made it possible to pattern substrates with different reflectance. Moreover, to make an arbitrary design of the pattern linewidth possible, a multiple regression equation derived from multiple regression analysis was used. It was found that the multiple regression equation produces patterns in good agreement with the design values. (C) 1998 Scripta Technica, Electron Comm Jpn Pt 2, 81(9): 38-45, 1998.